Catching up from some time away, camping (more like “glamping”) with some autism dads and others who know the score, by the French Broad River in Hot Springs, North Carolina. (The milkweed seemed like a sign of summer’s end.)

-0-

I’m impressed that as the first generation of the autism epidemic cohort – I guess that’s how I’d put it – is aging out of schools and into adulthood, a hundred flowers are blooming, sometimes literally. A dad whose son is 20 talked about all kinds of ideas he and his wife are working on, from a flower delivery service that includes donating one bouquet to a special needs family for every one sold. There was also talk of incorporating the tiny house movement into a group living situation for people with an autism diagnosis.

I know that Dan Burns and Teresa Conrick, among others, have worked on interesting projects. Not all will work on the first try but along with the harsh fact of a world unwilling and unable to accommodate the coming deluge, I’m impressed with the energy and creativity that’s emerging.

-0-

On the way back, I stopped for an Egg McMuffin and one of the staff was being animated and a bit goofy. “Don’t judge me, I’m special,” he said. I wasn’t sure whether to be offended because he wasn’t disabled, or accommodating because he was. I hope it’s not the hip kids co-opting phrases the way they did the R word and “that’s so gay.” But it’s becoming their world now whatever we think about it.

-0-

There are two kinds of studies coming down the pike that I was told to watch – or watch out – for. One looks at acetaminophen, which a scientist dad I talked to at length is convinced is responsible for 90 percent of autism cases. I just don’t buy it but I’m open to the evidence. He sent me some papers to read that I’ll take a look at. What are your ideas about the role, if any, of Tylenol in autism?

I can see the biological plausibility, but the idea it’s the “but for” factor in nine out of 10 cases doesn’t quite work for me. As I told this dad, one of the strongest arguments against it is the work Mark Blaxill, Teresa Conrick and I have done on early cases. If you accept our premise – autism was essentially nonexistent before 1930, first arose with the commercialization of ethyl mercury compounds in vaccines and preservatives, and first affected children in families with those occupations in the background – it is hard to see how a pain reliever fits the fact pattern better.

I thought he didn’t realize the power of that evidence, but then I would think that, wouldn’t I?

The second kind of study looks at older unvaccinated siblings of vaccinated children with autism. Many times parents will forego vaccinating subsequent children in the (correct) belief that there was a connection. But if those unvaccinated kids have the same or a higher rate of autism, it throws an obvious monkey wrench in the theory. If you have ideas for why this kind of data might not be convincing, I’d like to hear them.

Of course this sort of study gives the lie to the claim it’s impossible to compare vax v unvaxxed people, so why not do it in a broader group with unrelated children? We’ve been waiting for that for a long time now.

--

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about continued attention to the antimalarial drug Lariam, or mefloquine, and the fact that it is most certainly causing a percentage of veteran suicide and violence.

This week I heard from a very good, and cautious, source with military connections that there is evidence the Dallas shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson, who killed five police officers, might have been taking the drug and suffered its long-term effects.

He was an Afghan War Army Reserve veteran, which puts him in the right place at the right time. As long as the media and medicine ignore the acknowledged long term consequences of this drug, we are going to see more suicide or violence, whether this case was representative of that or not.

The only good-faith thing for the military to do is launch a high-power investigation. That, of course, would mean facing up to its culpability in inventing and mandating a deadly dangerous drug. It’s easy to be cynical but I think it can and will happen as more bizarre deaths occur, indefinitely.

--

One nice thing about being back is to catch up on posts and comments and realize how much good content appears every day and week. This comment by John Stone caught my eye: “It is a crazy idea that you can just suspend the normal rules of a liberal democracy and not reep appalling consequences.” I looked up liberal democracy and learned that the “liberal” is used in the classical sense of liberty, meaning that individuals within a majority-ruled country should have a wide margin of freedom within that context.

Liberal and libertarian – not so far apart when it comes to our common cause.

Comments

The reason given for why Tylenol is supposed to cause autism is because it depletes glutathione. That argument lacks an explanation why that matters. It matters because glutathione helps detoxify heavy metals. To say that the lack of glutathione causes autism can only be true when there is the presence of the offending toxic heavy metal.

The Lariam / Mefloquine military malaria drug issue is frightening. There is a sister antibiotic compound called Fluoroquinolones that have caused tremendous damage and deaths since the introduction and only recently restricted.

A patient advocacy group was key to getting the tighter prescribing policies enacted. See safer pills.org for more information. Www.certainadverseevents.com is a documentary illustrating the issues with the FDA. Many parallels to the vaccine situation.

Tylenol is not exactly a new drug. It became the headache pill of choice when it became obvious that another headache remedy phenacetin (as in Excedrin) was causing kidney damage. Acetaminophen was used ubiquitously all over Europe. Wouldn't there have been an uptick in autism? There was no surge of its use in the early '90s even though it's been stated. Furthermore correlation is not causation. When the pharmaceutical industry wants to prove something, they find a substance that's used by a lot of people and there will be no trouble finding a correlation to autism. Connecting anything to autism is very easy. The one substance that really causes the symptoms of autism is mercury, and why in blazes is that not studied? It's because researchers will find that it should never have been used as a preservative for anything. Mercury was used in paint with horrible consequences. Mercury is not to be mixed into interior paint. It's not supposed to be used on seed grain. It's not supposed to be used in crop spraying. The only place where it is allowed is in injected material for little babies. Let that sink in. It has also been used on my son in the form of dental amalgam before he 3 years old. Yes, I was stupid to believe it was silver filling. He didn't talk until he was 3 1/2 years old. He turned out to have a high IQ. But he was a very difficult child to live with. I don't want to go into more detail because his situation was a piece of cake compared to my youngest son. It's convenient to blame Tylenol, but it's not so easy to explain why mercury has never been tested.

Linda1, Have you never swatted a fly, or slapped a mosquito biting your arm, or accidentally stepped on an ant or an ant hill?

Autism is so serious a cause of grief, and its cause is damage within the brain. Aspects of this damage are known from a few neuropathological investigations, abnormalities seen on MRI, and functional MRI research. Causes like prenatal exposure to valproic acid can and should be investigated in laboratory animals.

I just reread an article on the neurotoxicity of the fumigant carbonyl sulfide (Morgan DL et al. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2004; 200:131-45), which reported and thoughtfully discussed handling of lab animals, and the neuropathology of this dangerous substance. We need this kind of information, and on mercury, lead, and other environmental hazards. All point to the vulnerability of brainstem circuits, which if injured around the time of birth will impair postnatal maturation of the cerebral cortex.

Autism will not be understood until its neuropathology (by all of its myriad causes) are understood.

The study below states that certain NSAIDS also have antimicrobial effects. Paracetamol @ 100 micrograms. I don't know what that is compared to doses given to pregnant women, and others after they are born, but I doubt that people in general have any idea that they may be taking an antibiotic when they are using an over the counter pain pill. If you look into it, you also find that remediation efforts are studying whether / how acetaminophen breaks down in water/soil, and how bacteria in the soils can start to become resistant to these drugs so that decomposition or breakdown of the drugs (their half life in the soil) takes more time after a while.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12001049 This one actually showed shows antipyretics interfering with the transport and uptake of certain antibiotics. So hypothetically, one could counteract one's own efforts unless acet. was also show to be antimicrobial against whatever germ you were trying to fight to begin with. How convoluted given how many doctors recommend tylenol! And, if tylenol is antimicrobial in certain ways and its already over the counter, if you are a risk taker can you use it instead of going to the doctor to get an antibiotic? curiouser and curiouser ... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7504664
"Other inducers of phenotypic multiple antibiotic resistance, e.g., benzoate, salicyl alcohol, and acetaminophen, but not acetate, also increased transcription from the mar promoter but to a lesser extent than did salicylate.

"If human children are being poisoned by vaccines in the name of better health, then why should vaccination of animals be unethical? "

Because we know that we would be causing pain, suffering and destroying life. That it isn't a human life or just a small animal does not make it any less barbaric. We are small compared to whales and elephants. That doesn't mean that it would be ethical for them to experiment on us, especially when they already know the outcome would be to destroy us, just so they could cut us open to see how.

There are lots of reasons for autism- I guess. But they sure did not show up in great numbers until we started increasing the vaccine schedule.

Tylenol does not deal with inflammation, and aspirin does. That could be the reason that a lot of kids squeaked by in the 50s and 60s and 70s (although there were big problems noted at that time) from the DPT shots.

Linda1, If human children are being poisoned by vaccines in the name of better health, then why should vaccination of animals be unethical? MRI scans of even small animals can now be done. Traditional neuropathology is still needed to look for microscopic aberrations like those found by Lukose et al. in laboratory rats subjected to valproic acid during gestation [1].

Human infants have been subjected to immediate clamping of the umbilical cord at birth since the mid 1980s, so there should be no ethical objection to doing this to monkeys. And that is how brainstem damage by asphyxia at birth was discovered in the 1950s [2].

Epidemiology is far less informative than evidence gained by experimentation. Autism is such a tragic affliction for human families. Much can be learned from experimentation with laboratory animals. Autism and all of its many causes will not be understood until experimental data on brain damage by these causes is obtained.

Autism has many causes. All result in brain damage, injury that disrupts language development, motor control, and environmental awareness (level of consciousness).

Tylenol, aspirin, valproic acid, mercury, lead, infections (like rubella), should all be tested in laboratory animals for their effect on the brain. Some of these have been tested, and appear to cause variants of Wernicke's encephalopathy (WE). Injury of the auditory pathway and other brainstem structures are prominent in WE.

The damage is similar to that caused by chronic alcohol abuse, vitamin B1 deficiency, poisons that disrupt aerobic metabolism, or oxygen deprivation at birth. The brain pathology must be discussed. I will continue to keep pointing this out.

It's not about vaccines or autism, rather its a comparison between the success of the same-sex marriage movement and the failure of the climate change activism movement. The ideas expressed, however, pertain to all movements for social and political change as it deals with avoiding bad habits that such movements can fall into (and which climate change activism has done in a major way), and is worth reading regardless of your personal views on same-sex marriage and climate change.

The movement to expose vaccine damage and change vaccination policy is up against so many powerful interests and pervasive mental paradigms but so far seems to mostly be avoiding the four bad habits written about in the linked post. The movement has largely stayed focused on achieving the specific goal of changing opinions and policy regarding vaccination, and since vaccine damage affects republicans and democrats, rich and poor alike, has avoided the trap of being a captive constituency of one political party. Lets hope that these traps can be avoided in the future.

The fourth trap mentioned in the linked post is "purity politics", and I think this deserves special attention within the movement because the other side, the CDC, big pharma, the media etc. has fallen for it in a major way, and if we can avoid falling into it ourselves than the situation could be turned to our advantage. The mainstream media's insistence that anyone who questions the ever increasing CDC schedule (and the fact that it should be mandatory) is "anti-vaccine" will push lots of people into our camp, as long as we have room for everyone from people who don't vaccinate at all, people who selectively vaccinate, people who vaccinate on a different schedule, and anyone who's skeptical of government overreach and authoritarianism. It also runs the spectrum from people who don't think vaccines have any place in medicine to people who think vaccines as a concept are good but just want the ingredients changed, and people who just take issue with a particular vaccine (such as HPV). All of us have enough of a common goal to work together.

As you may know, writer Jacqueline Susann, author of "Valley of the Dolls" and other racy 1960's novels, had an autistic son. The son, Guy Mansfield, was born in 1947 and diagnosed around 1951, when an autism diagnosis was still new and very rare. I had known this for years,. However, when the subject came up again recently, in light of your and others' research regarding mercury exposure, it occurred to me to wonder whether there was a possibility that either of his parents had received such exposure. A little digging turned up the following: both parents spent their adult lives in the world of Broadway theater (Susann herself went on stage from time to time). In the early 1940's, latex paints began to replace lead-based paints for stages and stage scenery. Many of those latex paints contained appreciable amounts of mercury.

This is all I could discover and I don't claim it proves anything. But the implications are intriguing. If documentation of an early mercury exposure/autism link is still being done, it might be worth following up on.

As for the second study of younger unvaccinated siblings still having autism.

I got that answer too.
The first child that had reactions to vaccines; did not have this occur with out the Mother's immune system taught it to do so.

Mothers continue on with a damaged cycling immune system. Inflammation rises and falls, a bit but mostly it continues upward. If you doubt that; remember that rheumatism is known as an old person's disease.

And I see this in my own situation.
I had an additional DPT and just one of the three swine flu vaccine a couple of years before my first child. My first child did react to vaccines, but like an idiot I did not recognize what they looked like. She did have really high fevers that I am suppose to report to the doctor. Sigh -- they did not seem to think it was important. It was seven or eight weeks after her fourth DPT vaccine that she developed Kawasaki's disease. So she had a knot at the injection site - it will go down like a bee sting and so she seem just off her feed after the shot till she came down with Kawasaki's, Almost two months between the shot and that event - I did not get it. .

I as a Mother was not the same woman that gave birth at age 25 as I was at 30. I had an additional DPT shot between those years. I lost a baby with a miscarriage - and yes; I was given a DPT while pregnant, and lost that child a few weeks later.

. For years I wondered why, I miscarried All I got from doctors was statistics of how many miscarriages there were each year, and I was not above it happening to me Then I finally remembered the additional DPT shot that I had. -- How could I have forgotten. I received a large cut on my finger, and I was afraid cut the nerve like severed a nerve like it had on my sister's finger and made it crooked. We had great insurance so why not get it checked out, my husband reasoned with me. The ER doctor said it had not severed the nerve and did not even need stitches, but let us get that tetanus shot; pregnant or not - he never asked.

I do remember my husband being concerned when I told him. Will it hurt the baby he said, and me - stupid me - said nay it won't bother the baby. I remember those words. It was at the end of October; when the three of us drove home that evening, it was already getting dark early, and the leaves were unbelievable beautiful.

When I lost the baby it was cold, rainy November morning. I had one class left and I was trying to put the finishing touches on a term paper to give to a friend/fellow classmate to take it to class with her - that was what I was doing as I was trying to miscarry that morning. Because I delayed going in - I miscarried in the car on the way to the hospital on a very cold, dark, and rainy November. We knew it was coming though - cause a week early I had had some bleeding and they had checked the baby over with an ultra sound. I was suppose to drink a lot before the ultra sound and that was just uncomfortable After having a look they were unsure if it was okay or not. They said to wait and see what would happen next.

The next live birth baby I had; followed a year and half later. He like my daughter reached all the mile stones at first. Even as he had immediate - not delayed vaccine reactions, so very unlike my daughter. It took the third DPT vaccine to slow down those normal milestones

I could have had some smart children if I had not been such a fool.

And once again Tylenol does not fight inflammation. It does not even take the temperature down much either. maybe half a degree - for about five minutes. I kid you not.

I came to that realization about dusk one evening, long ago. I stood in the door frame of my son's bedroom as the pale light filtered in through my own bedroom window. I held in my hand both Tylenol and Aspirin. By then my daughter had lived through Kawasaki's disease that required low dose of aspirin. They had her on a very high dose and then lowered it, when I asked why - the doctor said studies showed a low dose worked just as well as a higher dose and was safer too.

The decision I had to make that evening was do I give the Tylenol , like my son's dumb pediatricians insist I do, but I knew would not take down his temperature; or do I give My little pink four year old son laying hot and hurting with a bad headache; aspirin that I knew really would work.

The light grew, not from my bedroom window but from my own mind and I settled for then on -for ever on low dose aspirin. Because this was a time of no internet, but some how I realized that both my kids were having some kind of recurring - fever that might or might not have anything to do with microbes. .

My son did not talk for a long time. In the third grade the teacher asked if he did talk; she was concerned. But he did start taking; it did come.

I think your friend is spot on correct, Dan. Been saying it for years.

This generation of moms grew up when Tylenol use was becoming more ubiquitous as J&J ramped up their war on aspirin, as well as the surgeon general's warning about links between aspirin and Reye's Syndrome.

More and more, I'm inclined to think that heavy use of acetaminophen throughout the lifespan is triggering hormonal changes that affect our offspring.

This is a drug that would without question fail to reach the market if it were to undergo the toxicity testing required of newer drugs. I look forward to the day when this dangerous drug is finally pulled from OTC use, if not banned altogether.

There is a fascinating account of how high doses of salicilates (aspirin) played a major role in the deaths in 1918-1919 in the so-called Spanish flu. The dose at the time was actually a massive overdose. It did damage to the lungs which allowed pneumonia bacteria to invade. The aspirin caused sedation so the patient would lie down and not being able to clear his lungs did not help matters. So the influenza was not the cause. They recently took tissue samples from the bodies of the victims which pathologists analyzed and found that is was not influenza after all. I have read other accounts of the doctors at the time who admitted that it was the vaccines they produced caused a large part of the problem. So, just to be safe, let's all "take our damned vaccines" just to be safe, Okay? (sarc alert)

I don't believe tylenol is the main culprit in autism epidemics. In many European countries it was never used in children, who nevertheless developed post vaccination encephalopathy aka autism. Which is not to say that tylenol is safe. No, it is still a poison for kidneys and liver and probably exacerbates vaccine toxicity. However the undeniable fact is - no vaccines, no autism.

Regarding tylenol, with my first daughter (essentially NT), I was told I could give her acetaminophen for fever with vaccination. I could even give it just before going in to get her vaccinations, with a second dose fairly shortly afterwards with about four hours between succeeding doses.

With my second daughter (on the spectrum), I only concretely remember giving her some in "preparation" for a vaccine once with an instinctive feeling that I shouldn't have done that. I can't remember what I did when she had fevers (including a fever for three days before her nine month injections at which point she essentially stopped verbally interacting with us and I think I probably did use some)--I just remember I felt more reluctant to dose her with the stuff as readily as I had with her sister, so I'm pretty certain overall she was exposed to less. I'm unable to believe that removing it from the equation would have made things fine for most of us with vaccine injured children, but I'm also pretty suspicious the product is part of the overall toxic load for many of our kids with its liver function damage.

Of course, these are very similar projects - in order to exert political control and exploit financially the proponents have to exaggerate both the threat and their ability to overcome it, hoping everyone will forget/not notice how the ensuing carnage came about - or at least not be able to do anything about it. Probably, tyrants have behaved liked this since before the beginning of human history, it is just dressed up a little differently.

Wealth and power will always concentrate if unregulated; in the preindustrial era it lay in the hands of landed estate owners, then in the late nineteenth century the rail network allowed corporate industries to start to dominate.

The response started with Sherman Act of 1890, which when backed by further legislation in the early twentieth century limited the power that could be held by any single business interest by limiting its share of the market and by extension influence on the country.

But over the last thirty years the legislation has been ignored with the result that the endless stream of new technology entering modern life has received entirely insufficient scrutiny for health impacts. Pharmaceuticals are only part of the problem, with the food industry, chemical industry, and telecommunications industries also likely being responsible in part for the declining health of the population.

The solution is to break up the corporations and restore government bodies as the regulatory agencies they are intended to be.

However the repercussions once the truth emerges will be such that and those culpable will stop at nothing to prevent it.

"Obviously political terminology shifts in alarming and dangerous ways as the political landscape changes."

As I have often said .. we now live Orwell's "1984" world of "newspeak" ... where the meaning of words has been so corrupted that ... (as one example among many hundreds today) ... "lies" are denied .. in favor of admitting only .. "mis-speaking" or making "untruthful statements" .. as though an "untruthful statement" or "mis-speaking" is any different than what an outright lie has ALWAYS been.

In any event .. as a self-identified .. life-long "conservative" .. I agree wholeheartedly with your disapproval of the "neo-conservatives" ... most of whom deny their "neo-conservative" ideas, principles and political ideology are different than my own. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed .. my prime example of a "neo-con" would be George "Dubbya" Bush's doctrine .. preemptive strike .. to effect regime change .. in order to spread Democracy throughout the middle-east .. which has unleashed chaos throughout the middle-east .. beginning in Iraq .. with "neo-con's" like Sen McCain and Sen Graham .. still urging greater US military action wherever possible.

Unfortunately the traditional "liberal left" .. and ... todays "progressive left" .. have done to Liberalism .. exactly the same as the "neo-cons" did to yesteryear's "conservatism".

In my humble opinion .. the labels "liberal" and "conservatism" no longer apply as they once did.

I just wrote a long post and then previewed it, but then there was no button for actually posting it, so it's gone. Oops!

I don't have time to re-write the whole thing right now, so I'll just say this, briefly: It's all about the glutathione. Glutathione is the body's most powerful antioxidant, and as such, is critical for helping the body to rid itself of mercury and other poisons. Other than alcohol, Tylenol (acetaminophen) is the main chemical that depletes the body of glutathione. So, it appears that what we've experienced is a perfect storm. Tylenol became the go-to drug for kids with fevers beginning in the early 1980s. Then, in the early 1990s, kids suddenly started getting lots of vaccines full of mercury and other poisons. When they developed a fever in response to vaccination, they were given Tylenol, which immediately depleted their glutathione levels and ensured that some of the mercury (and possibly other poisons) would be stored rather than excreted. There may also be a third factor in this perfect storm: Folic acid. The U.S. government ordered it to be added to our wheat products beginning, I believe, in 1991. Folic acid disrupts the methylation cycle in susceptible individuals. The human body depends on the methylation cycle for producing glutathione. Add to this the fact that some people just have a harder time making glutathione to begin with, due to genetic variations, and Voila! You have an epidemic of not just autism but allergies and autoimmunity.

Political observations : Liberal and libertarian not that different - Yes.

Also this left and right political line is not right - it is a circle.
If you go too far right you get anarchy and the strong people collect their gangs and weapons and rule over the rest of us.;
if you go to far to the left the government is so over reaching in things it can never control, that it gives so many little mean people power - they become the strong and they rule over the rest of us.

And as for the immune system cycling - I read it in a text book years ago. But the immune system has a cycle to it. like so many other things of our body. If a child's immune system is damaged it starts have a period of high inflammation and in years past a parent gave a little baby aspirin. That might have saved some of us growing up with the DPT shots in the 50s. .

Absolutely. I am using the academic terminology I learnt 40+ years ago. As to progress, some of it is good and quite a lot of it is bad - I don't think there is any doubt. Obviously political terminology shifts in alarming and dangerous ways as the political landscape changes. "Neo-cons", for example, are not "conservative" in any way that acknowledges the root meaning of the word as far as I can see, even if they are of "the right" rather than "the left". From my informed old fashioned woolly conservative-liberal outlook the progressive vaccine project is radical, immoderate, tyrannical, incompetent and against all human decency (and masquerading as everything it isn't).

The role that Tylenol played is that in previous generations the treatment of fever was Aspirin.
Aspirin is an not just a fever reducer but also reduces inflammation and thins the blood which might be important to get blood to the brain and organs during an acute inflammation attack.

Too much Aspirin with a virus causes ryes syndrome and scared everyone back in the 80s. But now one paid attention to the dose that was being when a kid came down with Ryes. We had two in the community; One teen ager was self medicating for the flu and at that age they think more is better. The other was under a doctor's care and it was reckless the amount he put her on. I do understand that she was really having serious trouble with the flu though.

But my own observations when I was a young parent was - My kids were vaccine injured, my son had a obvious episode but my daughter did not. However when you say injured you think of one episode - get over that episode and start trying to get better. It I not - it is on going.

The immune system goes in cycles which has been observed and talked about in medical literature. I will try to find it again if I can, it has been so long since I read it.

I never took Tylenol or anything when pregnant. There was a small list of things mom could take if really sick. Tylenol, Sudafed, and Robitussin. That was it. This was 20+ yrs ago. Now Mom's take all kinds of drugs. Anti-depressants and vaccines the most startling.

When my son was born he had a strange anomaly. His umbilical cord did not detach for 11 weeks. Long story short it was something that would be seen in a child with a suppressed immune system like HIV. The doctor called the entire staff in to see and made that statement. I had no idea I should question that. Question adhering to vax schedule. My total faith was in their expertise.
Several vaccines contained thimerosal at that time. We piggybacked Tylenol and Motrin after shots for the following day or two. My son had a lot of unexplained fevers and we used it all the time. Infections that required antibiotics and more Tylenol. Diet plummeted after 12 mon vaxes. Self limited to all packaged garbage food. No meat or fruits or veggies except would eat baby food.
How do you isolate one factor as the cause when so many factors are at play? Thimerosal, overuse of Tylenol, MMR at 12 months with Varivax, & antibiotics. Genetic susceptibility & poor nutrition?

'The only good-faith thing for the military to do is launch a high-power investigation. That, of course, would mean facing up to its culpability in inventing and mandating a deadly dangerous drug. It’s easy to be cynical but I think it can and will happen as more bizarre deaths occur, indefinitely."

I guess you are right about it being "easy to be cynical" .. as I admittedly am .. but ... I think my cynicism is well-justified. Consider .. for the last few years .. it has been reported that "22 retired or active members of US military commit suicide EVERY DAY". If that stunning statistic hasn't caused the "military to launch a good faith high-power investigation" .. I don't see the military "launching a good faith military investigation". NOTHING.

@ John and Dan

Perhaps you guys can explain the difference between today's "progressive" .. and .. yesterday's "liberal"?

As I see it .. most of Founder's "checks and balances" have been overridden by TODAY'S "progressive policies"? Am I wrong?

Bringing up the possible acetaminophen connecting made me remember about Reyes syndrome which I'd come across in March of 2015. It purports that often people die from taking regular aspirin after having a viral infection.

When I first read about this, I also read that you're not supposed to give anyone with fever aspirin, especially children. So how many kids having high fevers from a severe vaccine reaction were given aspirin to bring the fever down and lesson the symptoms? Quite a few, I'd presume. People have been taking aspirin while having high fevers since as long as aspirin has been around. I wonder how many people have died because of Reyes syndrome and not from the viral infection they had? I wonder if this has seriously skewed our data bases about causes of death. Just wondering.

Some bad news: The injunction of SB277 has been denied in the San Diego lawsuit.

Yes, I had in mind when I wrote that while the US's founding fathers had no idea about the material circumstances of the nation they were creating 240 years or so on, what they wanted to avoid was oppressive government, government in which special interests dominated those of the citizen. The answer of course was to have tiers of elected government, independent judiciary etc. And of course the safeguards are not working. The government executive has been over-run by commericial interest, the politicians are bought out at whatever level - so are the judges and the press/media. There are no checks and balances which can't be over-ridden or circumvented. It is not so much the money that rules but the bureaucracies that control the money, who are seemingly beyond reach and have no responsibility to anyone.

In the terms I intended the US was supposed to be the prime example of "a liberal democracy" but by now it is completely failing - no doubt in many critical respects but the vaccine issue is a grave example. What is enshrined, of course, in SB277 is false/flawed collection of beliefs about the safety of citizens, and the result will be much harm. I suppose even if you argued that vaccines are a basically "a good thing", you could also argue like other good things that you can have too much of them (and for some people they might not be a good thing at all). But the courts are likely beyond sense.

People used to have some idea about Gates when he was trying to restrict trade in computer software - a friend yesterday was telling me the that he is much better now he is engaged in philanthropy. Of course, he is much worse. But none of the rules seem to apply anymore, or only to the people who no longer matter.

Some years ago dear David Kirby said to me "It is going to get worse before it gets better". I fear that the US will have to be absolutely on its knees (and much of the rest of the world) before that happens.